-tv^t poe,.^ 





ROBERT BURNS 



BURNS MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION 
Berkeley Temple, December 12, \S, 14 

AFTERNOON an£ EVENINO 



1MM( F lO. F. veil 



BENEFIT OF THE 

MnNlMRNT FIND 



Al> A S!^ 







BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BURNS MEMORIAL 
ASSOCIATION OF BOSTON. 



The Burns Memorial Association had its inception at a meeting 
of the Boston Caledonian Club in January. 1899, when it was sug- 
gested that the time had now come when strenuous efforts should be 
made to erect a monument to Scotia's beloved bard in the city of 
Boston. At the March meeting of the Club, a committee was ap- 
pointed to take up the matter with sister societies, and seek their co- 
operation in the movement. The committee called the sister societies 
together for conference in May, at which time it was decided that the 
best interests of the movement would be served 1)y forming a sep- 
arate organization to be known as the Burns Memorial Association 
of Boston. During the sunmier of 1899, meetings were held from time 
to time, and it was finally decided that for tlie best interests of all con- 
cerned, the Association should be incorporated under the laws of the 
Commonwealth, and to this end a Charter w^as asked for and granted 
October 31, 1899. The following extract from our Charter will show 
for what the Association exists: — 

"That whereas have associated themselves with the inten- 
tion of forming a corporation under the name of 'The Burns Memo- 
rial Association of Boston,' for the pur]X)se of erecting a monument 
in memory of the poet, Robert Burns in the city of I>oston, Mass., etc." 



The first president of the Association was Mr, George D. Wemyss, 
at that time president of the Scots Charitable Society. He was suc- 
ceeded by the late Mr. Henry Norwell, of Shepard, Norwell & Co. 

The Caledonian Club again took the initiative in starting the sub- 
scription fund by donating the net proceeds of their Burns Celebration, 
held in January, 1900, to the Monument fund. 

Mr. Henry Xorwell and Mr. Henry B. Leuchars each subscribed 
$500 ; Mr. J. Murray Kay, $250 ; Mr. Peter Gray and the Hon. A. B. 
Bruce $100 each. Other donations and subscriptions quickly followed, 
and the Association gave an entertainment at Tremont Temple, March 
28, 1901, which netted the monument fund $226.54. 

Senator Hoar on this occasion delivered his now famous oration 
on Robert Burns, which was afterward, in response to repeated re- 
quests, published in booklet form by the Association. Copies can 
still be had from the clerk at ten cents each. 

If the Association never did anything more to perpetuate the mem- 
ory of Robert Burns than give Senator Hoar ("the grand old man, 
eloquent") the opportunity to deliver this, one of the greatest of his 
orations, it has justified its being. Here are two of his delightful 
characterisations: 

"Burns belongs somehow to simple nature, I should rather 
almost be tempted to put his picture and include him in Bewick 
or Audubon among the songbirds. You might almost select a mock- 
ing-bird or a vesper sparrow, or a bobolink, or a hermit thrush, lo 
sing his music. You expect for him an eternity like that of Nature 
herself." 

"Y^et this man brought the best message ever brought to the 
whole world since Bethlehem, of love and hope and reverence for God 
and man. Humanity the round world over walks more erect for what 
Robert Burns said and sung." 

After the list of subscriptions had been published, the Association 
found it hard work to augment it perceptibly, and new plans were 
formulated and debated upon at nearly every meeting, whereby the 
objects of the Association could be brought to the attention of a greater 
number of the lovers of Burns than had yet been reached. 

On February 21st, 1905, another concert was held at Tremont 
Temple, at which the famous Scottish prima-donna. Miss Jessie Mac- 
Lachlan and her Company appeared before an audience wliich crowded 
the hall. This resulted in $528.51 being added to the mommient 



By TrariBfer 



fund, and restored the waning enthusiasm of the members. 

"There's nought but care on ev'ry han', 
In every hour that passes, 
What signifies the life o' man 
An' 'twere na for the lasses. 

Auld nature swears, the lovely dears 
Her noblest work she classes, 
Her 'prentice han' she tried on man 
An' then she made the lasses. 

By special invitation of the Association, ladies were present at 
the regular meeting held Wednesday evening, May loth, 1905, and 
from that date a new life and spirit was injected into our organiza- 
tion. The object of the Association and the difficulties it had 
labored under were explained to them and their assistance cordially 
invited. 

How nobly they responded to that invitation and how hard they 
have worked is self-evident from what is now before you at this fair, 
which is the result of their own efforts, with practically no assistance 
from mere man. 

There is at present in the monument fund, including interest, 
nearly $3,600, and it is confidently expected that before the year is 
over we shall have passed the first $5,000 mark. 





MiSvS Jean Armour Burns Brown 

Great Granddaughter of Burns, and her mother 

Mrs. Thomas Brown of Dumfries 



Photo by Wm. J. Hamilton, r,yiin 
at the door of Burns' Cottage 



THE POETS AND ROBERT BURNS 

(Compiled by Robert Earle May) 



The title and subject of the present article was sug.^esred upon 
reading the account of the Burns Centennial Anniversary, held at the 
Parker House, Boston, January 25th, 1859, under the auspices of the 
Boston Burns Club, which was afterwards merged into the Boston 
Caledonian Club. 

Two hundred and thirty-eight gentlemen sat down to dinner, 
the president of the Club, Gen. John S. Tyler, being supported b\ 
the following guests: His Excellency Governor Banks, Gen. Wm. 
Schouler, Hon. Jos. Howe, Hon. Chas. A. Phelps, president of the 
Senate, Hon. George C. Hilliard, His Honor Mayor Lincoln, Josiah 
Ouincy, Jr., Hon. J. Putnam Bradlee, Lord Radstock, the poets N. P. 
Willis, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Prof. James Russell Lowell, and 
the orator of the evening, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The Hon, Edward 
Everett sent a leter of apology as also Robert C. Winthrop, who con- 
cluded his letter with the following tribute to the Scots Charitable 
Society: "Nor can I forget that New England owes to the land of 
Burns her earliest experience of an organized association of benevo- 
lence in the Scots Charitable Society, dating back its original insti- 
tution to the year 1658. 

"Allow nie in reference to tliis interesting historical fact to offer 
you the subjoined sentiment, 'The Scots in New England two hundred 
years ago. They proved themselves worthy forerunners of the immor- 
tal 1)ard, who said: — 

" T)Ut deep this truth impressed m\' mind, 
Through all His works al^road, 
The heart 1)enevolent and kind 
The most resembles God.'" 



Josiah Quincy, Sr., in his letter of apology explaining his absence 
wrote, that Burns himself had taught him 

"When life's day is nearly gloaming 
Then farewell vacant careless roaming, 
And farewell cheerful tankards foaming, 
And social joys." 

and that "prudent, cautious self-control is wisdom's root." 

Benjamin P. Shillaber sent an original song and John G. Whit- 
tier sent a poem composed for this occasion. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson's oration, from which we quote below is 
a poem in prose, and the tributes by Holmes, Lowell and Whittier 
rank with the best of the many garlands bestowed upon our bard. 

On the occasion of the Centennial many notable gatherings were 
held throughout the globe, but in no one of these were there more 
lasting tributes made, or nobler sentiments paid to the poet's memory, 
than in Boston. 

The address of Mr. Emerson was extremely felicitous, as the 
following extract will show: — 

"He has given voice to all the experiences of common life; he 
has endeared the farmhouse and cottage, patches and poverty, beans 
and barley; ale, the poor man's wine; hardship, the fear of debt, the 
dear society of weans and wife, of brothers and sisters, proud of each 
other, knowing so few, and finding amends for want and obscurity 
in books and thought. What a love of nature, and, shall I say it? of 
middle-class nature! Not great like Goethe in the stars, or like Byron 
on the ocean, or Moore in the luxurious East, but in the homely land- 
scape which the poor see around them — bleak leagues of pasture and 
and stubble, ice, and sleet and rain, and snow-choked brooks; birds, 
hares, field-mice, thistles and heather, which he daily knew. How 
many 'Bonnie Doons,' and 'Auld Lang Synes' all 'round the earth 
have his verses been applied to! And his love songs still woo and 
melt the youths and maids; the farm work, the country holiday, the 
fishing people, are still his debtors today. And as he was thus poet 
of poor, anxious, cheerful, working humanity, so he had the language 
of low life. He grew up in a rural district, speaking a patois unin- 
telligible to all but natives, and he has made that lowland Scotch a 
Doric dialect of fame. It is the only example in history of a language 
made classic by the genius of a single man. But, more than this. 



he had the secret of genius to ch'aw from the bosom of society the 
strength of its speech, and astonish the ears of the poHte with these 
artless words, better than art, and filtered of all offence through his 
beauty. It seemed odious to Luther that the devil should have all the 
best tunes; he would bring them into the churches; and Burns knew 
how to take from fairs and gypsies, blacksmiths and drovers, the 
speech of the market and street, and clothe it with melody. The mem- 
ory of Burns — I am afraid heaven and earth have taken too good care 
of it to leave us anything to say. The west winds are murmuring it. 
Open the windows behind you, and hearken for the incoming tide, 
what the waves say of it. 

"The doves perching always on the eaves of the Stone Chapel 
opposite, may know something about it. Every name in broad Scot- 
land keeps his fame bright. The memory of Burns — every man's and 
1)oy's and girl's head carries snatches of his songs, and can say them 
by heart, and what is strangest of all, never learned them from a book, 
but from mouth to mouth. The wind whispers them, the birds whis- 
tle them, the corn, barley and bulrushes hourly rustle them; nay, the 
music-boxes at Geneva are framed and toothed to play them; the hand 
organs of the Savoyards in all the cities repeat them, and the chimes 
of bells ring them in the spires. They are the property and the solace 
of mankind." 

Dr. Holmes had been the guest of the Boston Burns Club on a 
previous occasion, Januarv 25, 1856. when he read an original poem 
from which the following is taken: — 

"The lark of Scotia's morning sky! 

Whose voice may sing his praises? 
With heaven's own sunlight in his eye. 

He walked among the daisies. 
Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong, 

He soared to fields of glory; 
But left his land her sweetest song. 

And earth her saddest story." 

On this occasion he concluded another poem, as follows: — 

'T fling my pebble on the cairn 

Of him though dead, undying; 
Sweet nature's nursling, bonniest bairn 

Beneath the daisies Iving. 



The waning suns, the wasting- globe, 

Shall speak the minstrel's story — 
The centuries weave liis purple robe. 

The mountain mist of glory." 

Several years before, James Russell Lowell had written the poem, 
"An Incident in a Railroad Car." 
the first verse of which reads thus : — 

"He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough 
Pressed round to hear the praise of one 
Whose heart was niade of manly, simple stufT, 
As homespun as their own.'' 

His later poem, read by him this evening, included the following 
lines : — 

"Dear bard and brother! let who ma}' 

Against thy faults be railing! 
(Though far, I pray, from us be they 

That never knew a failing!) 
One toast Til give, and that not long. 

Which thou would'st pledge if present, — 
To him whose song in nature strong, 

Makes man of prince and peasant!" 

John G. \\'hittier once narrated this episode of his early life. A 
friend loaned him Burns' poems, and he says: "I had never read anv 
poetry before except Friends' poetry, and thee'll know what that be. 
I began to read Burns and was lost in wonder. It seemed as if the sky 
had lifted and the world widened and I saw mankind outside the nar- 
row bounds of the Friends His genius is so great and noble 

that if there be blots (in his poetry) they are so little that I don't see 
them." 

Mr. Whittier was unable to be present but sent his poem which 
was read to the assemblage and from which we cull the following: 

'Tn smiles and tears, in sun and showers. 

The minstrel and the heather. 
The deathless singer and the flowers 

He sang of live together. 



''Wild heather bells and Robert Burns! 

The moorland flower and peasant! 
How, at their mention, memory turns! 

Her pages old and pleasant! 

"But who his human heart has laid 

To nature's bosom nearer? 
Who sweetened toil like him, or paid 

To love a tribute dearer?" 

Record was made of nearly one thousand gathering-s which took 
place this same evening, one of the most notable of these was held 
in the City Hall, Glasgow, where 800 gentlemen sat down to dinner 
under the presidency of the historian of Europe, Sir Arch. Alison 
Bart. Among the men of mark by whom he was supported were 
Sir David Brewster, Samuel Lover (the Irish novelist), R. Monckton 
Milnes, M. P., afterwards Lord Houghton, himself a poet of no mean 
order; Judge Haliburton ("Sam SHck," the American writer), Sheriff 
Henry Glassford Bell and Dr. Norman Macleod of the Barony. 

Mr. Monckton Milnes had just finished his duties as one of 
the adjudicators in the competition for the prize of fifty guineas, 
offered by the Crystal palace directors for a poem on Burns. This 
prize fell to a young Scottish lady, Miss Isa Craig, out of no fewer 
than 621 competitors. He took occasion to refer to the high char- 
actor of many of the unsuccessful works and quoted from one in 
which the Scots were charactt-rised as a people who read by turns 
"the Psalms of David and the Songs of Burns." 

We quote two extracts from Miss Craig's poem. 

"We hail this morn. 

A century's noblest birth 
A poet peasant-born, 
Who more of Fame's immortal dower 
! Unto his country brings 

Than all her Kings! 

"To Nature's feast, 
Who knew^ her noblest guest 
And entertained him best. 
Kingly he came. Her chambers of the east 
■ , She draped with crimson and with gold, 



And poured her pure jov wines 
l^or him the ])oet-sonled ; 
For him the anthem rolled 
From the storm-wind among the winter pines, 
Down to the slenderest note 
Of a love-warble from the linnet's throat."' 

Among- all the poetic tributes of the Centenary, none perhaps 
can be accorded a higher place than that by another poet of the 
people, Gerald Alassey, which concludes thus: 

"We are one at heart as Britain's sons. 

Because you join our clasping hands, 
While one electric feeling runs 

Thro' all the English lands, 
And near or far where Briton's band 

Today the leal and true heart turns 
More fondly to the fatherland 

For love of Robert Burns." 

Nearly every major and minor poet since Burns' time have paid 
loving tribute to his memory, one notable exception being Lord 
Tennyson. To name only those of the early 19th century, Byron 
and Shelley have perhaps but a single line of reference, John 
Keats wrote a sonnet in Burns' birthplace, but he claimed it was so 
unworthy the spot that he tore it up and afterw^ards while in the 
highlands rewrote it. 

Sir Walter Scott, James Montgomery, James Hogg, Robert Tan- 
nahill and other Scottish poets made Burns the subject of maiiy of 
their effusions worthy of being quoted in full. 

Thomas Campbell's 

'' Odk to the Memory of Burns " 

is often quoted, and contains the following : 

"Who that has melted o'er his lay 
To Mary's soul, in Heaven above. 
But pictured sees, in fancy strong, 
The landscape and the livelong day 
That smiled upon their mutual love? 
Who that has felt forgets the song? 



"And see the Scottish exile, tann'd 

By many a far and foreign cHme, 

Bend o'er his home born verse, and weep 

In memory of his native land. 

With love that scorns the lapse of time, 

And ties that stretch beyond the deep. 

"Farewell, high chief of Scottish song! 
That couldst alternately impart 
Wisdom and rapture in thy page, 
And brand each vice with satire strong; 
Whose lines are mottoes of the heart — 
Whose truths electrify the sage." 

Mrs. E. B. Browning, Mrs. F. D. Hemans and Eliza Cook also 
paid him tribute, the last-named saying: 

"Oh! Robin, Robin! bards divine 
Fair wreaths for thee have tried to twine; 
But none that deck thy memory-stone 
Eclipse the laurels of thine own." 

Of all the great English poets, Wordsworth most felt the influ- 
ence of Burns. He was afTectingly touched by the sad story of our 
poet and as if in homage several of his poems, written during his 
tour in Scotland, are in one of Burns' favorite meters. Standing 
beside Burns' grave in 1803 Wordsworth said: 

"Well might I mourn that he was gone, 
Whose light I hailed when first it shone, 
W^hen breaking forth as Nature's own, 

It showed my youth 
How verse may build a princely throne 

On humble truth." 



asram — 



"Sweet mercy! to the gates of Heaven 
This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven; 
The rueful conflict, the heart riven 

With vain endeavor. 
And memory of earth's bitter leaven 

Efifaced for ever." 



In this country, Fitz-Greene Halleck wrote a Poem to Burns, 
suggested by the sight of a rose brought in 1822 from near Alloway 
Kirk: 

"Strong sense, deep feeb!ng, passions strong, 

A hate of tyrant and of knave; 
A love of right, a scorn of wrong, 

Of coward and of slave; 
A kind, true heart, a spirit high, 

That could not fear and would not bow, 
Were written in his manly eye 

And on his manly brow. 1 

Such graves as his are pilgrim shrines — 
Shrines to no code or creed confined — 

The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 
The Meccas of the mind." 

In 1879 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, sitting in his study in 
that historic mansion in Cambridge, which is now also a place of 
loving pilgrimage, — sees a ploughman, who— 

" 'Mid the fields of Ayr, sings at his task." 

and says — 

"At moments, wrestling with his fate. 
His voice is harsh, but not with hate; 

The brush-wood hung 
Above the tavern door, lets fall 
Its bitter leaf, its drop of gall 

Upon his tongue. 

But still the music of his song 
Rises o'er all, elate and strong; 

Its master-chords 
Are manhood, freedom, brotherhood. 
Its discords but an interlude 

Between the words." 

and concludes — 



"His prescence haunts this room to-night, 
A form of mingled mist and Hght 

From that far coast. 
Welcome beneath this roof of mine! 
Welcome! this vacant chair is thine, 

Dear guest and ghost!" 

On the 25th of January. 1877, Lord Houghton unveiled the 
statue of Robert Burns in George Square, Glasgow, erected by 
one shilling subscriptions from lovers of the poet. John MacFarlane, 
the Canadian poet, wrote the inauguration ode from which we cull 
the following: 

"The shroud of the past hath vanished. 

And the mighty-given-of-God, 
Looms forth entranced with the meanest flower. 

That springs from the verdant sod ; 
Oh! wildly impassioned spirit! 
In the throes of thy great unrest, 
Thou gavest the golden chalice of Thought, 
But we called for the ribald jest." 

On the occasion of the inauguration of the Burns' monument at 
Kilmarnock in 1879, the poem by Alexander Anderson (Surfaceman), 
was considered to be the best of those submitted for a prize medal, 
but as it exceeded the length agreed upon the prize was awarded to 
Alex. G. Murdoch. A special medal was, however, awarded to Mr. 
Anderson for his poem from which we quote two verses: 

"O blessings on this swarthy seer, who gave us such a boon, 
And still kept in his royal breast his royal soul in tune! 
Men look'd with kindlier looks on men, and in far distant lands 
His very name made brighter eyes and firmer clasp of hands. 

"And sun-brown'd maidens in the field, among the swaying corn. 
Their pulses beating with the soft delight of love new born, 
Felt his warm music thrill their hearts and glow to finger tips, 
As if the spirit of him who sang was throbbing on their lips." 

When the patriot Kossuth visited the grave of Burns, a Dumfries 
gentleman ofifered a prize for the best poem commemorating the 



incident and Mr. Murdoch was again adjudged the winner for the 
poem which begins: 

"Immortal picture, fixed in memory's light, 

Kossuth, the champion of Truth and right, 
Beside the grave of Burns!" 

Upon the occasion of the unveiling of the statue to Robert 
Burns at Dumfries, W. Stewart Ross was awarded a medal for the 
prize ode, which contains this couplet: 

"Australia loves him, India too, as tho' he had but died yestreen; 
Columbia knows the 'Banks o' Doon' and Afric sings of 'Bonnie 
Jean!' " 

William Reid was the author of the poem, "To the Memory of 
Robert Burns" on unveiling his statute at Dundee, from which we 
quote the following lines: 

"Amidst the constellated peers of mind 

Can genius claim a brighter soul of song? 
Or in the myriad ranks of human kind 

What heart e'er glowed with sympathies as strong?" 

Next January the Boston Caledonian Club will for the fifty-second 
time celebrate the anniversary of the poet's birth. For years they 
have, on these occasions filled Mechanics' Hall, the largest in the 
city, and many distinguished speakers have delivered the oration on 
Burns, at these gatherings. Robert Buchanan in 1885 sent an original 
poem, 

" The Gift of Burns " 

addressed to the Boston Caledonian Club on the 126th anniversary of 
the birth of the national poet, from wdiich w^e give one verse : 

"Scots, gathered now in phalanx bright, 

Here in this distant land. 
To greet you, this immortal night, 

I reach the loving hand; 
My soul is with you, one and all. 

Who pledge our poet's fame, 
And echoing your toast I call 

A blessing on his name!" 




BURNS HAUSOLEUM 



J^fSSpMim 



We have mentioned how Wordsworth in 1803, standing beside 
Burns' grave, framed his poem in the favorite meter of Burns; nearly 
one hundred years afterward two of the leading poets of the end of the 
19th century paid tribute in the same way. 

William Watson won his laurels as a poet by an appreciation of 
Wordsworth which is considered a masterpiece. We quote one verse 
from his poem, 

"At THE Tomb of Robert Burns" 

"He came, when poets had forgot 
How rich and strange the human lot; 
How warm the tints of life, how hot 

Are love and hate. 
And what makes love divine and what 

Makes manhood great.'' 

Algernon Charles Swinburne has been said by some, to be the 
greatest living master of invective and by others to be the greatest 
living master of language. If it had not been for some of his invective 
poems it was thought that he would now be poet laureate of England, 
and competent critics say he was entitled to that position. If space 
would permit we would gladl}^ print his poem to Robert Burns in full. 

"A fire of fierce and laughing light 
That clove the shuddering heart of night 
Leapt earthward; and the thunders might 

That pants and yearns. 
Made fitful music round its flight; 

And earth sees Burns. 

i 

i The daisy by his ploughshare cleft. 

The lips of women loved and left. 
The griefs and joys that weave the weft 

Of human time. 
With craftsman's cunning, keen and deft. 

He carved in rhyme. 

But never, since bright earth was born 
In rapture of the enkindling morn. 
Might godlike wrath and sunlike scorn. 
That was and is 



And shall be while false weeds are worn 
Find word like his.'' 

In the year 1881 the most distinguished Scottish- American of 
the present generation, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, was the orator at the 
celebration held in Pittsburg on the occasion of the 1226. anniversary 
of the poet's birth. During the course of his remarks he made the 
following assertions: 

"It cannot be safel\' challenged that the name of Burns is the 
charm, the talisman, which unite more men in the bonds of brother- 
hood than any other which can be named, and it will be admitted that 
the legacy he has left us. furnishes the channel through which is 
poured most of the purest affection, the truest friendship and all that 
pertains to the rites of friendship. 

It is no longer the peasant and the illiterate who appreciate Burns 
best, but the men of keenest insight, the Arnolds and Ruskins, who 
confess themselves most completely under his spell, w4iile Carlyle, our 
greatest living countryman, finds in him the Aeolian harp of nature 
against which the rude winds of adversity blew only to be transmuted 
in their passage into heavenly music. The master minds of this day, 
hail him as the genius of his age." 

Clergymen of all faiths have ever been among Burns' most ardent 
admirers and some of the finest orations on Burns delivered in this 
country have been made by them. Among others we may mention 
Henry Ward Beecher, Robert Colly er, T. de Witt l^almage, Minot J. 
Savage and George C. Lorimer. We have frequently heard Burns 
claimed by orators of different denominations to have been of their 
belief (spiritualists claim him because of his poem, "The Vision," pos- 
sibly also because of "Tam o' Shanter" and "Death" and "Dr. Horn- 
brook") ,and we have more than once heard Dr. Lorimer declare that 
if Robert Burns had been alive at the present day he would have 
been a member of Tremont Temple Baptist Church. Atheists and 
freethinkers have magnified and quoted in a perverted sense some of 
Burns satires, but reverence for the Great Creator and praise for all 
His works, recurs too frequently in Burns' writmgs for them to claim 
him as one of their kind. Col. Robert C. Ingersoll delivered the 
oration before the Chicngo Caledonian Society January 23d, 1893, 
and wdien all else that he has written has long been forgotten, these 
verses with w^hich he concluded will be fondlv remembered: 



"The Birthplace of Burns" 

Though Scotland boasts a thousand names 

Of patriot, king and peer. 
The noblest, grandest of them all 

Was loved and cradled here; 
Here lived the gentle peasant prince. 

The loving cotter king 
Compared with whom the greatest lord 
; Is but a titled thing. 

Tis but a cot roofed in with straw 

A hovel made of clay; 
One door shuts out the snow and storm 

One window greets the day, 
And yet I stand within this room 

And hold all thrones in scorn 
For here, beneath this lowly thatch. 

Love's sweetest bard was born. 

- ■ Within this hallowed hut I feel 

Like one who grasps a shrine 
, When the glad lips at last have touched 

The something deemed divine; 
; And here the world through all the years, 

As long as day returns, 
The tribute of its love and tears 

Will pay to Robert Burns. 

A favorite 'theme of my lay' with many of Burns' poetic admirers 
from the earliest days to the present time has been the River Doon, 
whose bonnie banks and braes have been sung into immortality by 
the poet's verse. The subjoined monody appeared anonymously in the 
New York Ledger a few years ago, and while of no special merit in 
itself, has been widely copied and as the same idea has been used over 
and over again by others, we give it a place. 

•■ Thk Bonny Doon " 

"1 paused beside the bonny Doon 
At midnight and alone 
And heard it tell the listening moon, 
In saddest undertone. 
The loss and sorrow bv it known. 



"What thongli in sprino- my birks grow sweet 

In suniincr shade my tide? 
What though the years unchanged repeat 

Their magic at my side? 
No more to me the bard returns 

Who sang my banks and braes; 
No more the hps of Robert Burns 

Are vocal in my praise. 

"Oh Bonny Doon," said I. "take heart 

And learn this truth of me: 
Immortal as his heavenly art 

The bard himself must be. 
Though never to your banks and braes 

His wandering step returns, 
The sweetest singer in your praise 

Is still your Robert Burns." 

Yet as before beside the Doon, 
At midnight and alone, 
I heard it tell the listening moon, 
In saddest undertone 
The loss and sorrow by it known. 

Will Carleton, the popular American poet, wrote a poem entitled, 

" When Burns Was Born " 
from which we take the following lines : 

"Upon that morn, 
A hundred songs that now the world adorn, 
With pictures of the world that form a part, 
W^ere lyiug deep in Nature's yearning heart. 
The daisy oft had glittered on the hill. 
But waited for her ploughboy lover still; 
The wounded hare had suffered sore and long. 
But never yet had heard its funeral song; 
The cunning mouse had plied his petty craft. 
But had not sent the world a text that laughed 
Mankind to scorn!" 



The Rev. Arthur John Lockhart in his poem 
" The Champion " 
pays the following magnificent tribute: 

"O voice of nature — voice of Burns! 

Who e'er forgets what once he learns 

Out of thy heart-warm volume? 

Who loves, loves thee — as bird or dew 

On spire or spray, when morn returns: 

Who findeth thee, O Bard! receives 

The best that genial nature gives; — 

Hath odors, sunbeams, brooks and blossoms, 

Hath what is artless, nature, true. 

Wliat things are rare in poesy 

Or rich in life, are met in thee." 

Over 75 years ago the greatest Scotsman of his generation wrote 
the Essay on Burns which, while containing many Carlylean charac- 
teristics, is on the whole still considered to be the finest appreciation 
of Burns ever penned. Of the songs of Burns, Carlyle says: "With 
what tenderness he sings, yet with w^hat vehemence and entireness! 
There is a piercing wail in his sorrow, the purest rapture in his joy; 
he burns with the sternest ire, or laughs with the fondest or sliest 
mirth; and yet he is sweet and soft, 'sweet as the smile when fond 
lovers meet, and soft as their parting tear.' " If we farther take into 
account the immense variety of his subjects, how from the loud flow^- 
ing revel in "Willie brew'd a peck o' maut," to the still, rapt enthusiasm 
of sadness of ''Mary in heaven,'' — from the glad, kind greeting of "Auld 
Lang Syne" or the comic archness of "Duncan Gray," to the fiery-eyed 
fury of "Scots wha hae wi Wallace Bled," he has found a tone and 
words for every mood of man's heart, it will seem a small praise if wt 
rank him as the first of all our song-writers; for we know not where 
to find one worthy of being second to him. 

One of the most brilliant essayists of the present day, Richard 
Le Gallienne, says, 'Tn memory of Burns'': 'There can be little ques- 
that Burns is the most popular great poet in the world. 

Shakspeare is like an established church, a noble superstition, 
which it is well for the world at large to reverence; but it would be 
idle to pretend that his work with the exception of a few ])roverbial 



lines, has any such warm place in the general heart as the love songs 
and drinking songs of Robert Burns." 

It may be interesting in this connection to quote an extract from 
the London Sphere of a few years ago : 

"More people pay an annual visit to the places associated with 
Burns than pay an annual visit to the places associated with Shaks- 
])eare. 

"Here are the figures for one year: 

Shakspearc's house at Stratford 31,748 

Shakspeare's museum at Stratford 20,144 

Total 51,892 

Burns' l^irthplace at Ayr 50,092 

Burns' monument on the banks of the Doon . . 66,158 

Total 1 16,250" 

During the year ending September 30th, 1905. the number of 
visitors to the birthplace of Burns at Alloway was 56,309, being the 
largest number that ever paid for admission to the cottage. As usual 
the visitors came from all over the world and it is noted that Ameri- 
cans were more numerous this season than ever. The total number 
of visitors during July was 15,907 and during August 11,058. The 
total number of visitors to the monument for the same period was 
62,058, which, however, falls short of previous records. 

In the year 1904 a reproduction of Burns' cottage was built by 
the Burns' Cottage Association at the Louisiana Purchase Expositioji 
held at St. Louis. The commissioner of Chma to the exhibition, 
Chang Yon Tong, was invited to be present at the opening and in 
accepting the invitation he sent a poem from which we quote two 
stanzas : 

"O! Kindred soul of humble birth, 
Divine, though of the lowly earth. 
Forgotten thou art not to-day. 



Nor yet neglected — here's thy ba 



I am a foreign unknown bard 

Whose devious course is rough and hard; 
But cheered at times by thy sweet song, 
I sing away, nor mind the throng." 



^ 






We do not pretend that in all or any of the quotations we have 
made, that the choicest or best extracts have been given. In many 
instances the whole poem should almost necessarily have been inserted, 
but space forbad, and we have given what appealed most in a few 
lines to ourselves. We have, however, given the name of the poem in 
almost every instance, and for this we are certain will receive the 
thanks of many who will be led to read the complete poems for them- 
selves. 

We will conclude this article as we began, by coming back to 
Boston and quoting from the works of the late Frederic Lawrence 
Knowles, a gifted Bostonian, who died a few months ago in Roxbury 
at the early age of 36, two years younger than Robert Burns. Mr. 
Knowles was confidently predicted by critics like Richard Henry 
Stoddard, Lilian Whiting and others to be the next great American 
poet. Louise Chandler Moulton states that several of his poems are 
contributions to immortal literature, surely this is one of them : 

*' On a Flyleaf of Burns' Songs " 

"These are the best of him, 
Pathos and jest of him, 
Earth holds the rest of him. 



"Passions were strong in him, 
Pardon the wrong in him. 
Hark to the song in him! 



Each little lyrical 
Grave or satirical 
Musical miracle. 





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